Home Help: Colors of summer brighten your decor

Wednesday

Weekly home and garden rail, with items on warm-weather palettes, shopping for a water heater,

creating an eco-friendly lawn, and more.

Decorating Tip: Colorful palettes enhance warm-weather trends

As you embrace the warmer weather, the colors of summer make themselves obvious. Colorful blooms of bright greens, yellows and purples cheer the soul.

Why not bring that same optimism into your home, giving rooms an easy, colorful facelift with a fresh coat of paint? New warm-weather paint palettes can create a decorating scheme that perfectly captures the essence of a fresh, sunny day.

Paint is the great budget stretcher of the decorating world and allows you to give your home a completely different look without taxing your wallet.

Walls and more

Painting the walls isn’t the only way to add color to a room. Consider adding a color to wood, concrete, tile flooring, furniture or cabinets.

Stop for a minute and picture a drab kitchen with dated dark wood cabinets, scuffed white walls and a scratched wood floor. It's the perfect canvas on which to infuse a burst of bright sunny color.

Don't be afraid to push the limits. Paint the walls a bright purple. Get daring and echo the look of an iris or crocus by covering the cabinets in a sunny, butter yellow that coordinates boldly with the purple. The aged floor will spring back to life with a coat or two of a clean, fresh white to add contrast.

Mix in airy blues and fresh greens, too. They're the perfect hues to wake up an old wooden table and chairs and make it an inviting place to gather with the family around a delicious meal, a board game or ice cream sundaes on a warm summer day.

Start with a sample

If you aren't quite ready to make such a dramatic change or feel a bit nervous about picking colors, don't worry. Paint color selector systems can help you devise the right design scheme for your home.

Oversized color cards help you better visualize how color will look on a surface and also can help you determine which colors look good together. Color idea cards show you how to partner paint colors with other design elements to establish an attractive, connected look throughout your home.

Many times, you don't have to commit to a full gallon of a color until you're sure you like it. Sample programs, such as Martin-Senour Paints' "Sample Your Style," allow you to purchase quart-size samples of new colors so you can test them on your wall before you stock up on your favorite hue.

These generously-sized samples are available in hundreds of colors and cover up to a 100 square-foot area.

-- ARA

Home-Selling Tip: Don’t overwhelm potential buyers

Home sellers learn to live with all kinds of self-set booby traps: sports equipment on the stairs, festooned extension cords, slippery throw rugs and low-hanging overhead lights.

You don’t want buyers to hurt themselves: Make your residence as safe as possible for visitors.

Similarly, dogs and cars are great companions, but not when showing your home. Pets have a talent for getting underfoot, so do everybody a favor and keep the animals out of the way.

-- RE/MAX

How To: Shop for a water heater

How do you choose the right water heater for your home? Here are some tips:

- The Department of Energy advises you to consider several factors, including the type of fuel available to your home (gas, oil or electric), the size of your home, the energy efficiency rating of the water heater you're considering, and the annual operating costs of different types of water heaters.

- The size water heater you need will vary based on the size of your home, how much use you anticipate it will get and the type of heater you're considering.

To prevent wax buildup in a glass votive candleholder, place a small bit of water in the bottom of the votive before placing the candle inside. -- www.doityourself.com

Home Improvements: Deck trends define outdoor living area

Building or updating an existing deck isn't simply a great investment: It provides opportunities to personalize your backyard and customize the look to your taste.

- With a new emphasis on value, durability and ultra-low maintenance, many homeowners seek deck materials that resist fading and staining. Low-maintenance, eco-friendly composite decking material is made from a mixture of recycled wood fiber and postindustrial high-density polyethylene.

- Consider breaking up the wooden look of your deck with faux stone post covers, to help match the look of your deck to a stone house, to a backyard with stone pavers or to a stone wall.

-- ARA

Garden Guide: Great lawns are good to the Earth

A few tips for creating a lush lawn that doesn’t hurt the environment:

- Strong, dense lawns can help reduce run off and erosion, and filter rainwater to recharge groundwater supplies. The foundation of a good lawn is rich soil, so use a mulching mower to return grass clippings to the soil where the clippings break down and recycle nutrients back into the grass.

- Generally, only new lawns require additional phosphorus for root growth. For mature lawns, choose a fertilizer that is low-phosphorus or phosphorus-free, unless a soil test shows a need for more.

- Storm sewers often lead directly into streams and lakes. Never dispose of clippings or pet waste in or around sewers or water resources, such as rivers, lakes and streams. Make it a habit to sweep up any fertilizer, grass clippings and leaves.

For more information and water-safe lawn-care tips, visit LawnsandLakes.com.

-- ARA

Backyard Buddies

Daisies and zinnias are two types of flowers that create seeds that are delicious for birds.

Daisies of all types form generous, nutritious seeds. When blooming is over, the dried seed heads will attract finches, sparrows, cardinals and towhes.

Birds also love zinnias for their seeds. This flower is easy to grow, and there is a wide selection of colors and forms. As a bonus, your zinnias will entice many species of butterflies into your garden.

-- www.birdwatching.com

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